Lenovo ThinkCentre M720q 2022, Core i7-8700, 32GB, 128GB SSD, Black

A tiny office workhorse with way more RAM than it needs and way less storage than you'll want. Great for spreadsheets, terrible for anything else.

The i7-8700 is no spring chicken, but six cores at up to 4.6GHz still handles spreadsheets, browser tabs, and video calls without breaking a sweat. The 32GB of DDR4 is the real star here, it's way more than most people need and means you can run a dozen Chrome tabs plus Slack plus whatever else without hitting a wall. The integrated UHD 630 graphics are a weak spot, sitting near the bottom of our database. Don't even think about gaming on this thing. The 128GB SSD is the other letdown, it's one of the smallest we've seen and you'll be constantly juggling files to free up space.

The M720q's real competition is the Minisforum DeskMini UM880 Plus and the ASUS NUC 14 Pro. Both of those are newer, faster, and come with better integrated graphics and more storage. The Minisforum especially makes the M720q look dated, with a modern AMD chip that crushes the i7-8700 in both CPU and GPU tasks. The Apple Mac mini M4 is in a completely different league performance-wise, but it also costs a lot more. If you just need a cheap Windows box for email and documents, the M720q holds its own. If you want anything more, the newer mini PCs are worth the extra cash.

At USD 295 in the US, this is a solid deal for a compact office machine with this much RAM. But the Canadian pricing is all over the place, ranging from CAD 300 to CAD 902 across two listings. That's a massive spread. If you're in Canada, shop carefully and don't pay anywhere near the top of that range. The cheaper CAD listing is the only one worth considering. Factor in the cost of an external drive or SSD upgrade because 128GB won't cut it for long.

The Lenovo ThinkCentre M720q is a tiny desktop that punches above its weight for office work, but don't expect it to do anything fun. You're getting a refurbished 8th Gen Intel i7-8700 with 32GB of RAM in a chassis small enough to hide behind a monitor. That's a lot of multitasking muscle for a machine this size, and it's the main reason to consider it. Just know the 128GB SSD is going to feel cramped fast.

If you need to store a lot of files, edit photos or video, or play any games, this isn't it. Go get a Minisforum DeskMini UM880 Plus or an ASUS NUC 14 Pro instead. You'll get better graphics, more storage, and a newer platform for not much more money.

The ThinkCentre M720q is a fine budget office PC if you find it at the right price and understand its limits. The 32GB of RAM and six-core CPU will keep everyday work smooth, and the tiny size is genuinely useful. But the 128GB SSD is a real problem, and the weak graphics mean this is strictly a work machine. Buy it for a desk job, not for anything creative or fun.